Small crimes always precede great crimes. Whoever has been able to transgress the limits set by law may afterwards violate the most sacred rights; crime, like virtue, has its degrees, and never have we seen timid innocence pass suddenly to extreme licentiousness.

Extreme justice is often injustice.

It's no longer a warmth hidden in my veins: it's Venus entire and whole fastening on her prey.

A tragedy need not have blood and death; it's enough that it all be filled with that majestic sadness that is the pleasure of tragedy.

The quarrels of lovers are the renewal of love.

I felt for my crime a just terror; I looked on my life with hate, and my passion with horror.

Hell, covering all with its gloomy vapors, has cast shadows on even the holiest eyes.